Towards a Multiscale Integrative Model of WSS-Induced Signaling Pathways in Cerebral Aneurysms

Abstract

Blood flow induced wall shear stress (WSS) plays an important role in the genesis, growth and rupture of cerebral aneurysms. The exact mechanism of WSS and its interaction with the underlying signaling pathways, however, is not yet fully understood. A thorough investigation requires computational models of different scales, from macroscopic vascular level to cellular and sub-cellular levels, to be connected, integrated and further compared to experimental data. In this paper we introduce our preliminary work towards this direction. In particular, we introduce the WSS quantification process of a fusiform aneurysm digitized from a 3D CT image. We also propose a computational approach that could model multiple pathways such as eNOS activation and integrate them into a modular model.